It’s official: I’m a Ham

How blog posts will be issued from now on. Image: Library of Congress.

It’s been on my to-do list for years–get my ham radio licence. I took a six week class offered by the Pasadena Radio Club to study for the technician class licence and on a whim crammed for the general class. I passed both tests and as of yesterday am now also known as KK6HUF.

Many thanks to W6MES, who volunteered his time to teach the class and to the major memory system for helping with all those numbers. It was a lot of fun to review basic math and electronics.

So why do this in an age of Skype and cellphones? I find the DIY ethos of ham radio empowering. We are surrounded by electronic devices and it’s good to know a little something about what’s going on “under the hood.” I wish I had discovered amateur radio when I was younger–I might have struggled with math less had I had a hobby to motivate studying.

My interest in appropriate technology was another reason. There is a ham I met online who is constructing a website that will be of interest to readers of this blog–he was inspired by John Michael Greer’s writing on ham radio. I’ll share that website when it’s ready to go public.

Passing the test was easy, but I’ve got a lot of work to do. I have no radio, nor do I have any experience using one. And I’d like to learn morse code. I’m all ears if any of you have advice.

A guy had a tutorial on The Prepper Website about which portable radio to buy. He lists the exact serial number of everything he suggests buying. For a long time (decades)I have secretly wanted to be a ham radio operator. Congratulations!

This is a great book for kids–to help them understand what ham radio is–and was. As the blurb says, the author “identifies the hero of this story as her father, who in 1923 at the age of 10 became the youngest licensed amateur wireless radio operator in the United States.”

I also started out on local repeaters. It is a good way to become familiar with radio procedures. I have been using a simple 2 meter yaesu single band mobil radio. It is not very expensive and in a high RF noise area (pretty much any large metro area) it does a good job of filtering out the noise. Also, check out Ham Radio Outlet (HRO http://www.hamradio.com) on line and get them to send you a catalog. I drool over each new issue.

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Root Simple is about back to basics, DIY living, encompassing homegrown vegetables, chickens, herbs, hooch, bicycles, cultural alchemy, and common sense. We’re always learning, figuring stuff out, taking advantage of the enormous smarts of our friends and our on-line community, and trying to give some of that back in turn. Root Simple is a gathering place for everyone. Welcome.